The invention relates generally to power-driven conveyors and more particularly to conveyors having transfer belts stripping articles from a conveyor belt.
When a conveyor belt is used to discharge articles off its end and onto a discharge conveyor, a stationary transfer plate positioned in the gap between the two conveyors is commonly used. Belt articles can become stranded on the transfer plate when the conveyor belt stops or has no articles to discharge. Sometimes it is possible to discharge articles from a conveyor belt directly to a downstream conveyor without an intervening transfer plate in the gap. But the gap has to be small enough to accommodate the footprints of the articles being discharged without tripping them. When the conveyor belt has a long pitch or has to negotiate large-diameter sprockets at its discharge end, the gap is correspondingly large and can cause articles with small footprints or small bottom features to trip, skew, or strand.